Prologue Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Epilogue

PART V: FIRE

Hoagie's search for gold had come to nothing. Therefore, he was now waiting by the Chron-O-John, in case Laverne or Bernard found some and flushed it to him.
After a few minutes of waiting, he saw a glow in the Chron-O-John. Hoagie had a look, and found a flame gun, an exploding cigar, and a pair of chattering teeth. These were courtesy of Bernard, who thought that maybe Hoagie might be interested in them. Hoagie, however, knew nothing of this and could only stare at them, confused.
Then the Idea came.
It was such a good Idea that it was worthy of capitalisation. There are ideas, and there are Ideas. This was an Idea. Surely divine intervention could be the only explanation for such an Idea materialising in Hoagie's skull.
Nevertheless, it was there. Hoagie picked up all three items and sauntered down to the Mansion.
Inside, he sought out the Main Hall. There, everybody was up to their usual tricks: Hancock was shivering in his chair, Jefferson was sitting straight and looking for time capsule items, and Washington stood at the window, admiring his reflection.
It was to George Washington that Hoagie went. "Excuse me."
Washington turned. "Yes?"
"Mr. President, may I offer you an excellent smoke?" asked Hoagie.
"Can you also provide me with a light?" asked Washington.
"Sure."
"Well, in that case..." Hoagie put the cigar between Washington's false teeth and lit it coolly with the flame gun. Washington dragged in deep, then lifting the cigar from his mouth (the set of false teeth came with it) blew a lazy series of smoke rings.
In his hand, the cigar exploded. Washington's false teeth were sent spinning across the room. "Blast!" said Washington, a trifle indistinctly. "I hate it when that happens! See if you can't find those for me, will you? There's a good lad."
Hoagie went to the far side of the hall, ostensibly searching. He didn't know where Washington's false teeth had gotten to, and didn't much care. Instead, he carefully took the Chattering Teeth from his pocket and wound them up. Then he returned to Washington, and offered the teeth. "Could you use these?" Gratefully, Washington put them in his mouth.
Immediately his jaw began to bounce up and down, as the chattering teeth gnashed steadily together. "Why, thank you, young man." said Washington. Then he noticed something was amiss. He didn't seem to have complete control over his mouth.
"Strange," he mused. "I wonder if I should cut down on the coffee?" His teeth chattered noisily.
Hancock looked at him. "Hey, Tom, look," he said. "The father of our nation is cold. Better build a fire."
"You're right," said Jefferson. He sighed. "I guess you can have my log."
"Me?" said Hancock. "Why should I build the fire? You build the fire."
"I'm bothered by the smoke," countered Jefferson. "You build the fire."
"I'm bothered by your attitude," said Hancock, beginning to show some life. "You build the fire!"
"No, you build the fire, Mr. Penmanship!" said Jefferson.
"No, you build the fire, log lover!"
"No, you build the fire!"
"No, you build the fire!"

The upshot of all this was that two hours later, smoke was coming from the chimney of the Mansion. A fire was burning merrily in the fireplace, and Hancock had gratefully cast his rug aside. "You big baby," said Jefferson.
Hoagie went to talk to Hancock. His face had lost some of that ghostly pallor, and he even looked a bit more cheerful, thought not much. Gloom seemed to be a state of mind for John Hancock.
"Hi there," said Hoagie.
"Hello."
"Feeling better now that there's a fire?" Hoagie asked.
"Much better, thank you," said Hancock. "My teeth were grinding into a fine powder, and that blanket was really making me itch."
"What's with the canary over the fireplace?" asked Hoagie. Seeing the fire and its concomitant faint trails of smoke had reminded him of the tiny yellow bird in the cage over the fireplace. But also, it was part of his Idea, and he wanted to be assured on a few points.
"Oh, that's an early warning system," said Hancock. "It's quite ingenious. The canary is trained to ring the bell madly the minute it smells smoke. Then we know the building's on fire and we run like crazy!"
"Who thought of it?"
"It was invented by Red Edison, the owner of the inn," said Hancock.
"Why doesn't the fire in the fireplace set it off?"
"I assume," Hancock guessed, "it's because all the smoke goes up and out the chimney."
"Who feeds the canary?" asked Hoagie.
"Actually, no one does, it's a self-feeding canary," said Hancock. "It's specially bred with some kind of nutrient-producing bacteria in its gizzard. It's quite a time saver. I expect everyone will have them in the future. Amazing, isn't it?"
"I see," said Hoagie. He had everything he needed to know. But Hancock was fairly easy to talk to, unlike Jefferson and Washington, and so Hoagie kept going with the conversation.
"Nice painting of a turkey, dude," he said. It hung on the wall behind Hancock, a grand portrait several feet high of a bird with a pair of testicles under its beak.
"I'm glad you think so," said Hancock, almost gratefully. "The choosing of the national bird is on our agenda for the convention."
"And you want it to be the turkey?" asked Hoagie, who was sometimes quick on the uptake.
"Well, yes, but I'm afraid I may lose out," said Hancock.
"I thought the national bird was the eagle or something," said Hoagie.
"It may well turn out to be just that," said Hancock gloomily.
"What about the national theme song and stuff?"
"First things first," said Hancock firmly. "We have to resolve the deadlock on the bird issue. You see, there are two schools of thought on the matter. Ben Franklin and I are in favour of the turkey, whereas Jefferson and Washington for some reason want the eagle. But Franklin's always outside playing with his ridiculous toys instead of here where he belongs, so it becomes two against one."
"What's so great about the turkey?" asked Hoagie, confused.
"They've helped us to survive since we set foot on this continent. They're symbolic of prosperity and the thanks we give for our lives here. Besides, they're kind of cute."
"What's wrong with the eagle?"
"Well, it's a bird of prey, for one thing," said Hancock distastefully. "I don't think that's an appropriate symbol for our country."
Hoagie was just a little taken back. There was something mildly disillusioning about the studied incompetence of these founding fathers. "Don't you guys have anything better to do?" he asked.
"Such as what?" asked Hancock.
"Errr... " Hoagie couldn't think of a thing. "Never mind."
"There, you see?" said Hancock triumphantly.
"Well, I gotta go, dude," said Hoagie.
"Goodbye."
With Idea in hand, that gold pen was as good as his. But before Hoagie left the Hall, he did one thing. He picked up the discarded rug and held onto it.

Rug in hand, Hoagie went all the way to the top of the Mansion - right to the Edison's attic. Both windows were stuck (possibly one reason why it smelt so much in here), and only after a lot of effort was Hoagie able to lever one open. That wasn't the end of his problems, either. The resulting gap looked pretty small, and when he tried to climb through his belly got stuck. Hoagie pushed, and heaved, and pulled, and with a sickening gluggy rumbling the belly finally gave way, and he was outside on the rooftop.
He had a pretty similar view to that seen by Laverne, while she was up on the roof four hundred years in the future, but didn't pay it attention. Hoagie walked along the narrow ledge to the chimney, not caring at all for the drop below. At the chimney he took the rug, and stretched it over the top.
All the smoke was cut off, except for a few wisps escaping around the edges. Hoagie climbed back in the window, wondering what might be going on downstairs.

In the Main Hall it was chaos. Black smoke issued from the fireplace, and the canary rang its bell madly.
Jefferson was the first to notice. "FIRE!!" he shouted. As one, the three founding fathers took a leap at the nearest window, broke through it, and fell onto the grass outside.
After a while, the panic subsided and they all got to their feet. "Okay, who's the idiot who started the fire?" said Washington. Jefferson and Hancock both tried to look nonchalant.
"I bet this never happens to Tom Paine," muttered Hancock.

Hoagie walked down the attic staircase, along the third floor, along the second floor, down to the lobby, and into the hall. Smoke had started to accumulate at the roof of the hall, but even as he entered the flow of smoke from the fireplace tapered off. Quickly Hoagie picked up the gold pen and hid it from view. He turned to leave.
Washington and Hancock stood at the entrance to the hall. "It looks pretty clear in here now," Washington was saying to Hancock. "Say, did you get the pen on our way out?"
"No, I-" began Hancock, but Jefferson interrupted him.
He had suddenly appeared, holding the burnt remains of Hancock's rug. "I found a blanket blocking the chimney," he said.
Washington looked at Hoagie. "Son, do you know anything about a blanket?"
Hoagie did the only thing he could think of. He said, "Uh, didn't the dude next to you have one earlier?"
"Err..." said Hancock. Washington and Jefferson were looking at him; Hancock swivelled his head from one to the other, looking hopefully for some sort of escape.
"Uh... Hey, catch you later," said Hoagie, walking out. Once out of eyesight he went immediately to Red Edison.
Red Edison took the pen and smiled a glittering smile. "Ah, the final element for my ingenious battery! Stand back, boy! Give me room to work!"
Hoagie stood back. Red gathered the oil, vinegar and gold in a spare space on his bench, then began pulling all sorts of machinery, mechanised and otherwise, from his spacious pockets. Miniature chainsaw, pen, compass, clamps, hammer, nails, soldering iron, and more. It all went on the bench, and then without warning Red's hands whirled. Sounds of hammering, whirring, belting and screeching all melded together into one hideous cacophony. Red's hands were lost in a gathering cloud of dust, in which Hoagie could barely glimpse the growing activity.
Altogether too quickly, the final screw was in place. Proudly, Red held a small metal box aloft. Hoagie could see what looked like a small antenna and an electrical outlet. Then Red put the battery on the shelf. "A miracle of modern science! It will look lovely here on the shelf until I take it with me to Baltimore."
That wasn't supposed to happen. Red was meant to give him the battery. Oh well, thought Hoagie. He called out urgently, "Don't look now but the British are coming, dude!"
Red whirled and stared out the tiny window near the ceiling (though near the ground outside) "Eh? Where?" Hoagie took the battery.
Red turned back. "Is that supposed to be funny? I'm very busy." He got on with his work, grumbling a little, and Hoagie made a quick retreat, super-battery in pocket.
He was almost to the Chron-O-John when the problem struck. The super-battery had a power meter on one side, and as far as Hoagie could see it was registering empty. The battery hadn't been charged yet.
Perhaps he could flush the battery to Bernard and get him to charge it. Hoagie quickly batted aside that idea. Flush his one chance of getting out of here? Shyeah!
But where else was he going to get some charge from? Outside, Ben Franklin was really getting into the spirit of his experiment. "Soon all the power of the heavens will be mine!" he gloated. "All mine!!! If only we had some nasty weather..."

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